LONDONDERRY – Decades after earning two medals for his military service in World War II, Carl Jividen was honored last week for his civilian contributions to the stateside war effort.

Jividen, who turns 94 in February, was among 40 living veterans invited to Washington, D.C., on Dec. 10 as the the Civil Air Patrol’s World War II members were awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal.

In 1942, while studying aviation maintenance at the Ohio Institute of Aeronautics, Jividen was approached about volunteering for the Civil Air Patrol’s anti-submarine outfit on the Gulf Coast. Jividen flew out of — and helped build — Coastal Patrol Base 14 in Panama City, Florida.

“I thought we were doing our duty,” he said. “These were all volunteers who didn’t have to go down there.”

As a flight engineer, Jividen flew in patrols looking for signs of German U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico. The patrols involved two private civilian aircraft, a lead plane and a wingman, each one manned by a pilot and a flight engineer.

Dubbed “subchasers,” their job was to try and spot the German submarines or possible signs of their presence such as oil slicks, Jividen said.

Although Jividen never spotted a U-boat while on patrol, he recalled another coastal patrol plane sinking one near New Orleans. In May 1942, senior U.S. Army and Navy officials authorized the arming of the coastal patrol aircraft with 100-pound bombs that could be dropped from beneath the planes’ wings.

“Back then, the Gulf Coast was bare, so the Germans were in there pretty thick,” Jividen said. “(The coastal patrol) did well. We got them out of there.”

The coastal patrols were responsible for spotting 173 U-boats and attacking 57 of them. They also escorted more than 5,600 convoys and reported 17 floating mines, 36 bodies, 91 ships in distress and 363 survivors in the water.

Jividen said he served in the Civil Air Patrol for about a year before joining the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1943. He was active duty until 1946, serving as a flight engineer on B-29s, and a reserve officer until 1950. He earned a Distinguished Service Medal for his efforts during the war, he said.

Jividen met his late wife, Frances, a nurse, in August 1945 at what is now known as Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. After the war, he ran an ignition and carburetor business in Columbus. He and his wife moved to a farm near Londonderry in 1965.

Jividen was surprised to learn the Civil Air Patrol’s World War II members were being honored. He thought their contributions, particularly the efforts of the coastal patrol, had been lost to history.

“They recognized that we did a good job, I guess. It just took them 72 years,” he said.

Jividen isn’t bitter; he’s just sad so many of his fellow patrol members didn’t live to see it. He felt the same way about the National World War II Memorial in Washington, which opened in 2004.